Liars and Killers
by StopandSmellthePotatoes
Summary: Sequel to Through a Monster's Eyes. Clint Barton can't shake Loki free from his mind, and SHIELD is forced to take extreme measures to stop him from causing any damage.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, lovelies! FINALLY uploading the sequel. Sorry it took so long. I suck, I know. I hope you love it! Review so I know people are reading! Also because I love reviews. They make me smile.**

**Disclaimer-I don't own Avengers. It's depressing. But it's true.**

**Chapter One- Of Injuries and Hulking Candy Stripers.**

_Did you really think that you could get rid of me that easily?_

My name is Clint Barton. I am an employee of SHIELD, an assassin, highly trained, very specialized, not one to be losing their mind. Up until about two weeks ago, I had better self control than anyone I knew. And then a Norse god, which should be strictly fiction, locked in the pages of dusty children's books, came down from wherever Norse gods come from and stole my mind, replacing it with a murderous puppet. And that puppet hangs in the shadows of my mind, taunting me, even though this should all be over. Even when Loki escaped his Asgardian prison and came back to earth, he was captured again, unfortunately by no fault of my own. But it's not over.

And here he is again, refusing to let go of my mind. And I can't even escape, not with these cuffs strapping me to my hospital bed. He smirks at me from the mirror that hangs over the sink, and when he smirks, the thick black stitches that knot his lips together tear a little more of his flesh, and fresh blood stains his mouth grotesquely.

_Oh, Clint. Look at you, in worse shape then me. What did she do to you?_

It's hard to believe that anyone can be in worse shape than him, given the permanent gag and the cuts and bruises and the bloodstained green that he wears. But when I look at myself, bandaged so much that I look like some abused patchwork doll, I realize that I take top prize in most physically damaged. The short lived battle between SHIELD and Loki and I left me broken, shot too many times by agents, shot too many times by Natasha Romanoff.

_She was your friend, Clint. And she did this to you. I tried to stop it, I tried my best to keep you unharmed, but I could not hold her off forever._

I could still see the horror in her eyes even as she squeezed the trigger of the gun aimed at me. And I knew that Loki meant it when he says that he tried to save me. I wouldn't be alive without his magic.

"But that doesn't mean I appreciate your existence," I say out loud. "My life would be a hell of a lot easier without you messing it up."

_A hell of a lot more boring._ Loki smirks at me.

Then he is gone, and I am alone again, in the darkened room. I close my eyes and try to sleep, but the door is slammed open.

"Clint." Natasha stands in the doorway, her eyes filled with remorse as she looks over the bloody bandages that patch my torso and arms. "Clint, I'm sorry."

"Hi, Nat," I say, trying to smile for her. "How's it going?"

She shakes her head as she comes to sit by me. "Clint, I don't know why they're keeping you in here. Loki's been caught, he's sitting in a prison specially designed for him. I don't know why you're locked up in this room."

"They still don't trust me, Nat. They haven't trusted me since Loki first came down here and possessed my mind. They won't ever trust me again." I let my head fall back on to my pillow. It hurts too much to try to sit up anyway.

"That's not true, Clint."

"Of course it is. You don't even trust me. No one trusts me here. I don't blame them. I don't blame you. I wouldn't trust me, either. I know I'm a killer, and I'm sure that's all I'll ever be, but it was never supposed to go this way. I was never supposed to turn against SHIELD. That wasn't the deal."

"You'll get out of here once they deal with Loki. Once I deal with Loki." Her face is set, resolved as she takes one last look at the damage that she inflicted on me.

I don't say another word before she gets up and leaves.

They don't leave me alone for long. Maybe they think that shoving teammates and supposed friends in my face is an effective way to become trustworthy and consequently useful to them again. It doesn't seem to be a method approved by most psychologists, but Nick Fury has never really held with that crowd.

At least, that's the only reason I can think up that would lead to Dr. Banner standing awkwardly in front of me, fiddling with his shirt cuffs. Until now, I don't think I've even said a word to him.

"Hi," he starts. He's set a tray down, which presumably carries my dinner, and he comes towards me with a silver key and reaches for my cuffed hands. Once I've been unlocked, he steps away and pulls a chair up to sit in.

I pull the tray closer and take the lid off. "Jello. Delicious." The green jello, mashed potatoes, carrots and indistinguishable kind of meat do very little for my lack of an appetite.

Banner stares at me for an uncomfortably long time, expression unreadable. I realize he won't leave until I eat, so I stab the mashed potatoes with unnecessary force and start to eat.

"So is this how it feels to be watched all the time, Dr. Banner?" I don't know what makes me say it, and I hardly recognize the voice forming the words, but I know that I said it of my own free will. No one made me say that.

Banner just blinks at me, not angrily, calmly, but with just enough irritation to border on terrifying. And that's when I realize that he was sent to keep me under control. If I'm going to be unhandcuffed at any point until Loki is gone, it will be in Banner's presence, with the Hulk keeping me in check with the kind of power that no metal restraints contain.

"They explained to me what happened to you, Clint. I'm really sorry that you're the one that ended up like this. Believe me when I say that I understand crappy luck," Banner says kindly. That's the last thing he says to me, and I eat in silence.

He cuffs one hand to the bed before leaving. As he leaves, and nurse comes in and checks my bandages.

"You're looking better," he says. "You're healing abnormally fast. You'll be back to normal really soon." He stabs my arm with a syringe, forcing some clear liquid into my veins. And then he leaves too, turning the lights off and telling me to sleep. I get the feeling that the needle that just pierced my skin doesn't really offer much choice. A frantic, familiar voice calls out to me from inside the room, or inside my head, but I can't reply, my mind is too clouded with drug induced sleep.

_Clint. Stay awake._

* * *

_Clint. They're coming to kill me tonight._

Loki's voice echoes in my mind as I frantically try to loose the cuff on my left wrist. They trusted me, or they trusted the cuffs, enough to leave me overnight with only one set of cuffs pinning me to my bed instead of my usual cuffs-on-both-wrists routine. I don't know why I'm doing this, I don't know why I would want to save him, but I know that I cannot let SHIELD kill him. The IV in my arm tugs as I pull my cuffed arm anxiously, and I pause and look at it. Then the IV is out and the monitors are going ballistic, but I don't have to listen to them for long, because the lock is picked and I am out the door, not before grabbing my bow and my knives that have been kept across my hospital prison, in plain sight to taunt me.

How the hell am I supposed to find him? The SHIELD headquarters are like a maze, and I don't have much time.

_Left. Go left, and then down the stairs._

I ignore my throbbing wrist, pretend not to see the blood smearing all over my arm, and I do as he says. I find him in the cavernous basement of SHIELD, in a square glass case like a collector's action figure. He is sitting in the middle on the floor, eyes locked on me as I step out of the shadows. I don't break eye contact as I knock his only two guards unconscious and he smiles at me once we're alone in the room.

I push to button to release him from his prison and he stands up, slowly, painfully. He winces a bit from his injuries, and winces even more from the pain of his stitches.

"Wait," I say. He stops, confused. I pull my knife out and step towards him, into the cell so that I can see better.

He steps back, carefully, but threatened. _Clint. What are you doing?_

I don't say anything. I bring the knife closer to his mouth and let it slide under one of the stitches before pulling it forward, maybe a bit sharper than necessary, but he deserves it. The coarse black thread slices in half.

And Loki collapses to the ground, his back heaving violently, entire body, which has grown progressively leaner and frailer in his time being punished, shaking on the concrete floor. I kneel beside him, more worried than I should be for his wellbeing, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

_NO._

I jerk back.

_No more._

And then the sirens go off, and the room goes red and the cell door begins to slowly shut. If we don't move fast, we'll be trapped in there together to be killed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi, darlings! Another chapter for you. Sorry about the cliffhanger. But those are my favorite way to end chapters so... :) Sorry... Read. Enjoy. Review. **

***Insert standard disclaimer about me not owning Avengers here***

**Chapter Two- Escapes and Alcohol**

I know that I should be the one to do the quick thinking in this situation. The red flashing lights and deafeningly sharp sirens shouldn't freeze me in my tracks and cause me to panic. I've dealt with far worse scenarios before, and yet it's now, life or death by the hands of my own fellow agents, that I blank out and don't know what to do.

So I'm grateful when Loki takes over my mind for a brief moment to force me into action. My bow is in my hands and an arrow is sticking out of the control panel for Loki's prison, effectively stopping the door from shutting. Only five guards storm through the guards at first, and Loki and I waste no time in taking them on. I slam my bow into the neck of the first guard that comes through the door, bloodlessly knocking him unconscious. I don't want to kill all of them. I just need to stop them from killing me.

The sharp pain of a speeding bullet lodging itself in my body has become all too familiar of late, and there it is again in my leg. I don't stop, shooting the rest with a gun I've grabbed from one of the guards, the pain clouding my vision enough to want to get this over with, enough to make me forget not to kill them.

_We have to get out of here._ He's stating the obvious, but he's right. We don't want to wait around to see what else SHIELD has to offer to stop us from escaping, so I lead the way out of the red-lit room. Instead of going back the way I came, I go down the hall that I know leads to the garage. I hear footsteps, loud, numerous, and running in sync behind us, and I ignore the pain from my leg wound and start running too. The garage is just ahead now, and I slam the metal door open, waving Loki through, before taking off for one of the generic gray SHIELD cars that I know have keys in the ignition. I pick one and jump in. "Get in!"

_Not more cars,_ Loki sighs before getting into the car that I've already started. And then we were gone, free from the SHIELD headquarters, and driving in a completely aimless direction.

Now I have time to think and wonder exactly what the hell I was doing saving the person that had taken over my mind and used me as a tool in his scheme to destroy the earth. I hadn't been lying when I'd said that putting an arrow through his eye socket would make me feel better, and yet here I am, sitting in a car with him-no, driving his escape car- his eye sockets perfectly intact. I glance over at him to see him staring stiffly at the road that is only lit by the headlights, his hands clasped in his lap, doing nothing to staunch the steady flow of blood from his mouth where I tried to cut the stitches.

It can't be pity that makes me help him. It's hardly in my nature to take pity on injured people. If it was, I'd be in the wrong line of business. And he's not exactly a cute, fluffy animal. The stitches are horrendous, just looking at them makes me sick at the thought of the unimaginable pain it must cause, but they only serve to make him more startling to look at. With his raven black hair and bloodless, pale skin, and the bloody, torn mouth, he looks like some kind of demonic, tortured Snow White. There's no pity to be felt when looking at him.

Nick Fury's voice coming out of the dashboard of the car startles me from my distracted thinking and I almost slam on the brakes, before remembering that this is a SHIELD car, and the radio is supposed to be doing things like that.

"All agents, I repeat, all agents need to hear this message. The war criminal Loki has escaped from his prison at SHIELD headquarters sometime within the last hour. Due to our security system being breached at 23:16 tonight as you're all aware, we can't be sure if we have any recordings of what happened. Until we have confirmation of the recordings existing, I'm calling this a Level Five. I want all available agents actively searching for him."

Then there is only silence in the car and my mind is racing. They don't know I'm with Loki. In the confused rush going on back at headquarters, they probably don't even know I'm gone. If this is true, this situation doesn't have to end as badly for me as I originally thought.

I make a sharp turn onto a main road, a destination now in my mind and shining brightly in the darkness.

* * *

"Tony. Pepper's right, you don't need to be a bartender. You can just hire one to invent drinks for you," Bruce says, not looking up from his paperwork spread across Tony's unreasonably expensive glass coffee table.

"Just try this. I already know it's delicious." Tony sets a martini glass down on Bruce's papers and then flops into the seat next to him.

The martini glass is filled with green liquid, bright green, the kind of green that turns out to be poison in every bad children's movie. "What is this?" Bruce asks.

"It's green," Tony says proudly, taking a sip of his own not disturbingly green drink.

"No way. I had no idea that it was green It's not like it's the color of traffic lights and radiated jello and the other guy." Bruce picks it up and swirls it around, eyeing it distrustfully.

"Ooh. The Other Guy. That's a good name. That's what I'll call it. That's your official drink."

"Of course it is."

"What is with all of this stuff on my table, anyway?"

"It's paper, Tony. It's how the little people do work."

"That's boring." Tony notices that Bruce hasn't tried his drink yet. "Drink it. Tell me how awesome it is and how I should open a bar."

Bruce doesn't get to try his drink, because the private elevator dings open and Clint Barton steps through. Barton looks stressed, eyes quickly scanning every inch of the room before settling on Tony and going towards him.

"Security breach!" Tony announces as a way of greeting, and Barton ignores him.

"Security breaches seem to happen a lot with you," Barton says sharply. "At 23:16, 11: 16 P.M, you hacked the SHIELD security system and files, correct?"

"Um..." Tony looks at Bruce, who shrugs in confusion. "No? I don't spend all of my time hacking SHIELD's very poor security system. I have hobbies. I have a life. Speaking of. Your suit is black and maroon isn't it? Sort of purple-y? What's your favorite drink?"

"I don't have time for this, Mr. Stark. I'm here because I need you to confirm that SHIELD's security is back online and stronger than before," Barton says calmly, professionally.

"Right now?"

"Yes."

"At one in the morning."

Barton just glares at Tony, and Tony sighs dramatically before pulling out his phone and pushing a few buttons. "Fine. Give me a few moments. If it's a new security system, it might take a moment to load and-nope. I'm in. Some security you've got there."

"Let me see that," Barton demands, reaching for the phone.

"No. This is my phone. Get your own. What do you need to see? Not that there's anything to see. There are... no files. No records. There's nothing here. It's been wiped clean. Are you sure Fury didn't clear SHIELD's history?"

"Maybe you didn't actually hack it?" Bruce offers, standing up and coming to look over Tony's shoulder. Tony lets him take the phone and and Barton rolls his eyes in exasperation. "Maybe this is the new security?"

"No. I'm all the way in. There is nothing there. Huh. I always wondered if top secret government organizations got viruses and now I know. You need to report this to Fury. Like, yesterday. This needed to be reported yesterday."

Barton starts for the door.

"And next time, a little warning before you people show up here, kay?"

Barton is gone, and Tony and Bruce go sit down again. "Should we be more concerned about SHIELD getting hacked this severely?" Bruce asks.

"Oh, probably. But, come one. We all know that Fury will fix it in about an hour and all will be well," Tony says confidently, finishing his drink off and staring pointedly at Bruce's still full glass.

"Right."

"You drink that. I'm going to make a Hawkeye-inspired drink. He certainly could have used one."

"You seriously always wondered if top secret government organizations got hacked?" Bruce asks.

"Well, yes. Didn't you?"

* * *

The elevator chimes open again about an hour later, and none other than Nick Fury, looking as far from happy as one possibly could. Tony stands up quickly, about to spout his traditional greeting when Fury stops him with an angry look.

"Save it, Stark."

"You people really do need to stop barging into my personal space. It's rude," Tony lectured primly.

"'Us people?' Who else has been here?" Fury says sharply.

"Uh. You know. You. Coulson. You. And... Coulson," Tony says slowly.

Fury gives him an odd look, but chooses to ignore Tony's characteristic weirdness for the time being. "We need you to come in as Iron Man. Loki has escaped."

Tony and Bruce look surprised. "When?"

"A little over an hour ago. But that's not why you're coming in." Fury throws a black, familiar looking arrow on the glass coffee table. "This was found at the scene of his escape."

Tony and Bruce stare at it. They know who that arrow belongs to. The same person that an hour ago stood exactly where Fury is standing now, the person that inspired the drink in Tony's hand now. Fury is looking at the arrow too, sadly, like he's just lost his best man. The gravity of what has happened is slowly sinking in with Tony and Bruce. Loki is free, their own man helped him, and now Tony is responsible for finding them both and bringing them back in.

"Agent Barton has been compromised. Bring him back dead or not at all."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello, lovelies! Chapter three for you! Read. Enjoy. Review.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Avengers.**

**Chapter Three-Wanted Dead or Not At All**

"Goddammit."

Clint lets himself into the car that has been parked in an underground parking garage with a string of angry curses. He is inhaling and exhaling sharply, in an attempt to stop the pain or calm himself, eyes wide and hands flexed nervously above his injured leg. I let the magic that I used to conceal it while he was upstairs drop and watch the blood flow from the ragged bullet hole in his black pants.

_So does it hurt?_ I already know the answer

"Yes, it hurts, goddammit. It may have looked all right but it hurts like a-" He stops himself from saying whatever he intends on saying, staring out of the windshield with blank eyes. "Stark said that SHIELD's database, every bit of information that SHIELD has ever stored, has been cleared from their security system. There is nothing in there. And no footage of me springing you before you got your death sentence." For the first time since I've come back to Midgard, Clint looks genuinely pleased with how things have turned out. Then his face falls and he looks at me accusingly. "What did you do with SHIELD's records?"

_I didn't do anything, Clint. Someone else did that._

He doesn't look convinced.

_I am telling the truth. I had nothing to do with this. But you and I both know for certain that there are people on the world willing to cause a lot more damage to your precious organization than I ever planned. We met them. You worked with them. And they were there of their own free will, much like you are here now. But I suppose anything is better than being watched liked a hawk so to speak, by a man who himself should be under surveillance._

I watch what I've said sink in. "Someone else is trying to take SHIELD down? Who? Why?"

_I've noticed in the course of my life, that the heroes-the heroes in more minds than just their own that is-always seem to think that every evil originates from one person, one kind of person, when of course that is not true. You cannot defeat one being and think that you have defeated every evil that you have ever faced. You should realize this by now. All of your so-called Avengers should realize that, but not a single one knows this. But you will learn, and I will not be there to see it._

Clint doesn't say anything, but he doesn't need to. It's there on his face, unhappy and tense, his realization that it will never be over, not even if SHIELD gets their way and ends me.

* * *

"This just doesn't make any sense," Bruce mumbles as Tony polishes his Iron Man helmet. "What the hell has _happened_? We're forced together and we hate each other, then we don't hate each other and we're a team, and now you're supposed to _kill_ one of us? Was this the plan all along? Get a team of incredibly powerful people together, but make sure they all have the power to kill each other just in case they're unstable?"

"Bruce. You're overreacting," Tony says absentmindedly.

"_Overreacting_? You're about to go leave to kill Clint! He's one of us! You don't just _kill your own teammates_."

"Well obviously. I may not play well with others, but even I know that," Tony says, as if he's stating the obvious. Bruce blinks at him in confusion. "Fury came to me for this because he knows I'm the least...moral I suppose, of this team. The least attached to Hawkeye or Barton or Clint or whatever we're going to call him. They're not gonna call Steve in, that's for sure. He's even worse than you with the whole 'killing our own man' thing. So Fury thinks I'll be okay, not happy about, but okay with finishing Clint off."

"And are you?"

"Of course not. I'm going to find him and I'm going to ask him what the hell is going on. And then I'm going to come back and get the whole goddamned story from Fury. And in the meantime. You should actually work on that."

The suit is going on in its usual spinning light show-display, and Bruce follows him out onto his sky-high balcony. "Work on what?"

"Start finding out what's going on. So I know what I'm getting into. And so I don't have to deal with Fury. I don't like talking to him when he's angry. And he will be angry when I get back." Just before the helmet shuts over her face, Tony says, "I hope you realize that it came down to this with you and I, I wouldn't kill you either. Just so you know."

He takes off, leaving Bruce to shake his head before going back inside to work on his computer-hacking skills.

"I wouldn't kill you either, Tony," he says to the sky.

* * *

SHIELD headquarters had turned into something out of one of Nick Fury's nightmares. An escaped prisoner, a war criminal and terrorist again earth itself, had escaped, leaving four guards dead and one severely concussed. And that was just the really bad part of the night, he was trying to ignore the huge security breach that was keeping them all at work later than he wanted to be. Everyone in the cold, secure concrete building rushes around, yelling anxiously into phones and walkie-talkies, shuffling paper work, rebooting computers while praying under their breath.

"Director Fury."

Fury turns his attention to the upset man that had darted up beside him. "Yes?"

"The system... When it was hacked, the cameras stopped filming and security recordings were deleted or... lost. We have no idea how it happened or if he had assistance. Chances are, we won't know until he is caught. We've been trying to recover any lost files but it might take a while."

"That is _not_ the news I wanted to hear," Fury says as he strides down the hall to the room where Loki had been imprisoned into earlier that same night. "But thank you for telling me. Get back to trying to recover the files."

Fury steps through the door to the makeshift prison room and scans the scene. The guards have been removed, leaving chalk outlines in their place. Security buzzes around the room, taking pictures of the empty cell with the door jammed in a half-open position. Which is not normal, not for that kind of cell. Nick follows the path from the cell door across the room, across two chalk outlines and a bloody smear on the floor, to the cell's control panel. Something stands straight up from the red emergency stop button, and on closer inspection Fury sees that it's an arrow. He pulls it from the panel, scowling. He knows what this means.

Fury's walkie-talkie crackles to life, straining to be heard of the nervous chatter in the prison. The head SHIELD doctor's voice comes through, "Director Fury, I know you're busy, but. Well. We've got a situation in the medical area."

Fury doesn't even need to be told what the situation is. And he knows how he must respond, his mind racing, searching for the right person to send to finish the job, but it doesn't get easier. He's already ordered Barton's death once. Doing it again should be easier, but it only leaves him feeling sicker.

"We've lost Agent Barton. He's disappeared, sir."

* * *

I've pulled the stolen SHIELD car over, stopped in some empty field beside the dead road. Now I have to plan. There has to be a way to get out of this without getting imprisoned for the rest of my life just because I've been running scared from SHIELD's watchful eye and trigger-happy kill policy.

"We could find the people that hacked SHIELD. We could find out _why_ they hacked SHIELD. They have to be up to something, and they're clearly a danger. And if we could find out what they're up to..."

_Clint, what makes you think I'll help you?_

My knife is in my hand, open, glinting in the moonlight as it presses against his bloody lips in the blink of an eye. He reels back but I grab his neck and let him suffer for a moment. It's the least he can do. "I know you feel pain, Loki. You're not some immortal, bulletproof, knife-proof good like you would lead us to believe. You _can_ be hurt, and you _can_ be killed. And I know you don't want that before you can get your brother back for how he's wronged you. So you will help me, or so help me god, you will never see another day in any world but this one."

I release him once I'm satisfied with the terror in his eyes and he falls back against his seat stiffly, unblinking.

"Do you understand?" I say sharply.

_Yes._


	4. Chapter 4

**Hi lovelies! A new chapter for you all! With a special appearance from my favorite Avenger ever! Take a wild guess who it might be when you look at the title. Read. Enjoy. Review. I like reviews. A lot. They make me happy AND they motivate me to write faster. Convenient how that works isn't it?**

**ANYWAY. On with the story. Which. By the way. I don't own Avengers. Yadayadayada. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Four-Rogues and Captains**

"Where's Tony?"

The voice, loud, authoritative, and yet somehow still friendly, startles Bruce from his work. He turns around quickly, taking his glasses off and shutting down the files that are opened and projected brightly into the living room.

Not that he needs to shut the files down, considering that it's Steve standing in the elevator doorway. He probably didn't even really notice the images, let alone the SHIELD logo emblazoned on each file. His gaze is firmly on Bruce. Steve doesn't seem to realize the time, 4:34 a.m to be exact, if his neatly ironed traditional khakis and button up shirt is any testament to that. At least Bruce has the dignity to look tired, Steve looks as caffeinated and ready to take on the bad guys as he always does.

"Tony? Director Fury sent him out on some kind of mission. He didn't really say what was going on, but you know how Tony understands those half orders that Fury gives out when no one else does," Bruce says vaguely, remembering what Tony had said about Steve reacting negatively to Tony's kill-Barton initiative. Steve wouldn't handle it like Tony was going to handle it, he would go straight to Fury and probably start yelling about honesty and loyalty. Situations like this couldn't have been handled in Steve's straightforward manner, Tony's obtuse, roundabout way of handling of things was ideal for this if they wanted to get out alive and unscathed.

"What kind of mission? Does it have anything to do with SHIELD's databases being broken into and... deleted?" The words are awkward and unfamiliar coming from Steve, but they are very obviously why he is here. Even if he is still learning exactly how important computers, and the information stored on those computers is to SHIELD, Steve knows that what has happened is bad for all of them. And Bruce can tell that despite their mutual disinterest in the other's wellbeing, Steve trusts Tony enough to ask him questions about what exactly happened.

"It sort of has to do with that. I mean. I'm really not sure. I don't really know what he's doing." Which is true. Bruce _doesn't_ know what Tony is planning to do. He knows what he is _supposed_ to be doing but he also knows that Tony won't actually do anything even close to the plan.

Steve narrows his eyes. "Bruce, what are you not telling me?"

Bruce fiddles with the pen in his hand, clicking it nervously, trying to decide what to do. He can lie if he needs to, but he's not as good as Tony and Steve would see through him in a second. And having Steve on their side, at the very least just to help Bruce out, couldn't be a bad thing. If he can force Steve to stay at Stark Tower and resist the inevitable urge to go marching back to SHIELD to force them to shut Tony's mission down, he could be a helpful addition to their little anti-team team. He's not sure how he'll be helpful, given his inability to use cellphones, let alone Tony's convoluted, unnecessarily complicated touchscreen, projected computers. But Bruce is sure Steve will be helpful in some way.

"How much do you know about what happened with Clint?"

"Agent Barton? Very little. His mind was possessed by Loki, but Agent Romanoff... fixed the problem so to speak."

"Right. But there's more to it, and somehow all of that has to do with SHIELD being hacked and Tony's mission." Bruce can see that Steve is not following his line of thought, so he gestures to the couches. "Sit down. I'm going to do my best to explain this, and it's going to take a while."

* * *

We haven't made much progress in geographical terms, but this time, we don't need to. We're not running from any immediate threat, and once I destroyed the generic tracking device in the stolen SHIELD car, I know it's not much of a hazard to pull of of the road to plan the next course of action. Glancing at Loki where he sits on the grassy hill overlooking a dwindling, filthy river confirms that he feels better not being confined in the speeding car.

Loki answers my unasked question about what to do next. _You said, back before the battle and Stuttgart, that SHIELD has no shortage of enemies._

"But those people that you recruited or forced to work with you-"

_Recruited. I did not have to force them._

"Right. You only forced Dr. Selvig and I to be your mindless sidekicks. Well, those people didn't matter to me at the time. I took no notice of them, I have no idea where they came from or who they are, which is I know exactly how you wanted it. But now you're the only person here that might know who they are."

Loki stares out at the water, where the reflection of the sunrise is distorted and muddied, and closes his eyes. _I could try to find them. But it will take time, and that is not something that we have a lot of._

"We're being followed?" I ask quickly, hand already reaching for my bow.

_You didn't really think they would let me go so easily?_

"Being obtuse and cryptic might work on Mars or Asgard or wherever you come from, but you could at least _try_ to be straightforward and answer questions efficiently. It's not just my life on the line now." Maybe teaming up with the god of lying, chaos and trickery isn't my best idea, but it's the only option I have at the moment. Until I get a message on the SHIELD car's radio that the hacker was actually just some kid with too much time on his hands, I'm going to treat this as a high level security breach and a threat to SHIELD and to the country. Even if SHIELD isn't actually on my side right now, I'll still perform my duties as an agent like I'm not potentially being hunted down by my own men.

_I don't think you're 'potentially' being hunted down anymore. You are very definitely being searched for. They know that you're gone. They know that you're a threat to them._

It hurts to think that the people that should trust me now consider me a threat, until I remember how many agents I've probably killed. I am a threat, and all things considered, I've officially gone rogue. It hadn't really sunk in until just now, not even when Natasha stood in front of me, telling me that she had to kill me. We'd been in that situation before, roles reversed, and we both made it out alive, so it didn't seem like death was a realistic option. Until now. Now, I realize how severe this situation is. Combining what looked like my abandonment of SHIELD with Loki's escape and SHIELD's databases being hacked ended up with an unfriendly, unforgiving end for myself. But I'm not panicking, even as the reality of the situation sinks in. Panicking will end in rash decisions and punishment, but keeping a level head and having some kind of plan promises a brighter, less life-in-prison or death kind of ending.

I accept the fact that I have gone rogue according to SHIELD, but I'm not going to stop working for them, not when I'm possibly the only one even looking into this situation.

_Clint, you realize that when we were gathering people to serve as my soldiers, you were the one doing the recruiting. I know nothing of the people that you found. I kept no record of where you found them from, I did not need to. It wasn't important to me._

"It still isn't important to you," I add.

_I can feel how much you care about your realm. But I cannot make myself care about it. This world offers nothing for me. Right now, it is a suitable place to escape from Asgard to, but when it stops being safe, I will find a way to leave._

"So why haven't you left yet?" I ask sharply.

Loki just turns and looks at me, eyes piercing, for once more distracting than his ragged, destroyed lips. His eyes are questioning, seeking clarification for my accusing words.

"Why not just shoot me or knock me out and leave? Clearly you can still take over people's minds, maybe not like before, but you still have the power to take control of a mind and make it do your will and-wait. Wait." My mind is racing, an idea forming, probably badly, and I'm definitely about to make a hasty decision like I just said I wasn't going to do. "You can still control people's minds. You can look through people's eyes and see what they see. Yes?"

Loki nods. _Yes. It's hard. Harder than before. Not permanent and if I stop thinking about them I don't control them._

"Right, but the point is that you can. That's what's important right now."

_Yes, Clint. I can._

If I can't have a computer or a way to search for Loki's guard of SHIELD's enemies without being tracked by SHIELD themselves, I can have the next best thing to internet access.

"I want you to find Tony Stark, I want you to take his mind and find the people we were with the last time we were forced to work together."

_Tony Stark?_

He's my best bet. Taking over Fury's mind would not end well for us, Dr. Banner's mind would be far too unstable, as would Natasha's, in her own way, and Captain Rogers wouldn't be any use for the job at hand. And wherever Stark is, no matter where that might be in the world, he will have access to his personalized search engine to find whatever he needs, or in this case whatever I need, in a matter of seconds. And right now, we need haste more than anything else.

"Yes."

* * *

Tony has been flying for a few hours now, searching for any signs of Barton. He has watched the sun rise, veering wildly off his rather random course to avoid being blinded by the rays, and backtracked to the SHIELD headquarters more times than he cares to count so that he can track each road that leads away from headquarters, with no luck.

Granted, he's not moving with any sense of urgency and he did make a pitstop for breakfast, but he had assumed that Barton wouldn't be this good at playing hide-and-seek. Tony has grown bored with the dull, grassy landscapes often interrupted by identical suburbs and strips malls and ugly gray roads, and just as he's starting to consider going back to Stark Tower and tracking Barton down the easy but boring way, a voice and a face flash in the back of his mind. A pale face, smirking, taunting him, but a face that Tony feels he defeated nonetheless. A voice that Tony knows has goaded him in the recent past.

_Loki._

Loki has made his way into Tony's mind.

And then Tony is plummeting out of the sky, towards those boring suburbs and those ugly gray roads.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi, lovelies! Sorry I took so long to update. It's been busy. But. Here you go. Took long enough! I hope you enjoy! Review if you want, I like helpful advice and kind reminders of various plotholes. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Avengers. I own Hawkeye Dr Pepper cans, but not Avengers.**

**Chapter Five- Gang's All Here**

"Fury explained to me at headquarters what had happened to the databases, that they were broken into like a thief breaks into a bank vault, and then everything was taken, like it was robbed. Even I know that that's bad. _Really_ bad. SHIELD is, after all, a security-oriented branch of the government. And if all of the computer digital stuff really is the future-"

Steve is cut off by Bruce. "It's not the future. It's the now. It's everything to all of these organizations, and to every individual American. That's why it's such a big deal that this happened."

"Right, but I don't understand why the thief didn't just copy everything so that we never knew they had been there," Steve says. Bruce shrugs.

"Maybe they're really awful at computer hacking. But I get what you're saying. What good does it do them if we know that they were there? It'll just help us find them faster."

Steve looks back at the laptop Bruce gave him to help. "And what I really don't understand is on what planet does the bank robber _return_ the stolen items to the vault?"

* * *

Eric Selvig has barely left his laboratory in New Mexico since Clint Barton came to visit him with orders from SHIELD. At least, at the time they seemed like orders from SHIELD, but when Loki stepped through the makeshift portal instead of Thor, Selvig knew he had been lied to. And after he had been knocked unceremoniously into a very hard, very metal desk, he had watched with bleary, dazed eyes as Agent Barton left the lab _with_ Loki. _Helping_ the god that had just tried to destroy the earth, and on a far more personal note, the god that had just taken control of their minds. Unless Barton was still being mind controlled, but his eyes showed no sign of possession. There is no trace of the unnatural frozen blue in Barton's eyes.

All Selvig really understands is that Barton somehow got his hands on instructions to build a temporary portal to Asgard. And, although Barton had taken the portal, he is sure that he can recreate it. He just needs time.

And because Selvig needs time, has has chosen to not tell SHIELD until he has already completed the portal replica and proven that it works. His phone has long long died, his five o'clock shadow turned into a full on beard, and he's only eaten what unhealthy, un-meal-like foods from the lab's kitchen area, but he has finally finished it.

He thinks.

He hasn't had any confirmation on the matter, but he's been testing it, turning it on every few hours for the last two days in hopes of seeing Thor step through to bright portal, or at least a flash of an unfamiliar world. Selvig glances at the clock and decides that it's time to switch the portal on again.

The room is washed with light, bright colors streaming through the room like spotlights, and Selvig covers his eyes, hand already on the switch to turn it off, prepared to be disappointed again by another failed test, when he hears a heavy clunk.

Silhouetted against the blinding light is a tall form, a shadow of a man coming closer to Selvig as he switches off the portal and lowers his hand. Finally, the right person has come through the portal.

"Thor!"

"Eric Selvig. I had been told that there had been a disturbance, a blinding light like that of the Bifrost emitting from my brothers prison, and I knew that it must have been you. I am glad to have finally gotten through." Thor smiles before scanning the room carefully. "Where is my brother?"

"Loki? He escaped almost a week ago. Well, he didn't escape. Not exactly," Selvig trails off, because to be honest, he's not sure what happened last week, and he hasn't been in contact with SHIELD to confirm or deny his suspicions of the events that will have since unfolded.

"What do you mean by that?" Selvig has almost forgotten what it's like to have a god around asking questions as if he is giving orders.

"He had help. From Clint Barton."

"Barton? Barton's a friend. Unless Loki has begun to control his mind again?"

"That's what I thought at first, but no, I don't think so. Barton's helping him of his own free will. But we can talk about that later. We have to call SHIELD. They have to be notified that you're back."

* * *

Natasha has been pacing anxiously back and forth in front of Nick Fury for the last half hour, practically twitching with frustration. Fury doesn't know what to say, doesn't want to try to explain how Barton managed to get away again, how he managed to have to give out kill Barton orders yet again. So he remains silent in the boardroom that was specially designed for the Avengers Initiative, watching her go between her own seat and Barton's.

"Don't kill Clint. You have to kill Loki, he's the only problem here. You can't kill one of our own, what kind of example does that set?" Natasha sits down finally, and Fury can't help but notice that she has settled upon Barton's chair instead of her own.

"He's doing this on his own, Agent Romanoff. No matter what you may feel for him, no matter what responsibility you feel towards him, I can't let him stay alive. He's too much of a risk. I'd rather lose one good man than the whole program."

"And you think he's replaceable don't you? You think his skill set is easily replaceable," Natasha says coldly.

"No, Natasha. We don't think that he's easily replaceable by any means," Fury says sharply.

"So why kill him? You can help him. You don't have to punish him because Loki decided that he should take over his mind. You can't replace Clint, and we need him on the team. There is not one person that would say otherwise. He's important."

"Dammit, Natasha. We're not going to replace him. We don't need to," Fury says, finally losing his patience and slamming his hand on the table.

"You don't need to?"

"We have you, Agent Romanoff. We don't need to replace him if we have you." Fury has the dignity to at least look upset as he says this. Natasha sits in silence, frozen in shock, even as the phone rings loudly, shattering the silence effectively.

"Director Fury speaking."

Natasha doesn't even bother listening to Fury's half of the conversation, too busy thinking of ways to help Clint, to get him out of this, to clear her debts with him forever. She doesn't even notice when Fury hangs up and turns back to her.

"That was Eric Selvig, calling to say that Thor is back to pick up his baby brother again. Maybe this time he'll actually be able to keep him on Asgard."

* * *

Stark's mind is incased in his metal armor. Through his eyes, I see bright lights, flashing warning signs, and past all that clutters his vision, a blurred rush of landscape. He was flying, we are falling now, fast, heavy, and the ground is not all that far away.

And I have no idea how to control his armor.

I could abandon ship so to speak, but then Stark will smash into the ground, and without his mindless green pet to save him, he will not survive. He will not have time to regain control. And Clint seems to be under the impression that his future will be something like mine without Stark's technology.

So I use magic instead of his science and I strain to soften the blow to the ground, unable to control the armor as he does to make it keep flying. And then I delve into his mind, trying to learn how to use his armor, only to discover a muddled, flashing, disjointed mess of words and numbers and images and ideas. He is a genius, but not an organized genius, and within seconds I know that whatever Clint may believe, Stark's mind will not be of use to us. Not now certainly, but I have begun to doubt, lost in the jumbled thoughts of speeding and weaponry and designs, that his mind will ever be of use to anyone but Tony Stark.

The next time I open my eyes, I am sitting in the grass by the dirty Midgardian river, with Clint standing guard next to me. Like a hawk, his eyes are twitching, scanning the area as his hands curl around his weapon. When he notices me sitting up, he kneels.

"What happened? What did you find?"

I lean on my knees, running my hands through my hair, wishing for nothing more than to be back on Asgard, without these rough threads sealing my mouth with my blood. _I didn't get anything._

"What? How-how did you not get anything?" Clint says, genuinely confused, blinking like a confused child. "You should have at least been able to find something."

_No. He was flying. He fell and I stopped him but I could not work his suit. I could not work his mind. You'll have find another way, because I'm sorry, Tony Stark is of no use to you now._


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi darlings! Sorry this took so long. Been feeling a little uninspired in the writing department this week.**

**Hope you enjoy! Review!**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own Avengers oddly enough. It all belongs to Marvel.**

**Chapter Six-When It All Goes Wrong**

Natasha is outside in the courtyard when Thor arrives at SHIELD headquarters in his usual stormy boom, touching down only a few feet from where she sits. She's been sitting there since Fury got off the phone with Selvig, shaking and hoping that Clint would show up and tell her that this had all been one big joke and that really they had to leave on a mission on a few hours to kill people that were so obviously evil and not Natasha's own friends. But, without even looking up from her clenched fists that rest in her lap, Natasha knows that Thor's thunderous arrival can only bode ill for Loki, and in turn, Clint.

Director Fury come down the steps that lead to the otherwise empty courtyard, and Natasha looks up to watch Thor stride to him quickly.

"Thor. Glad you could make it. We think we'll be able to find them within a couple of hours, then you're going to have to go in and find them," Fury says, turning away from Natasha without making eye contact, even though she knows that he's seen her.

"What is it that I must do?" Thor asks, voice echoing around the concrete and dead grass of SHIELD's mostly forgotten about outdoor break room.

"You may do with your brother what you see fit, as long as he has no chance of escaping to Earth again. But you're to kill Agent Barton on sight. I don't want him here."

"Agent Barton? I will not kill him. He is of no danger to me."

"No danger to _you_, maybe. But he's a danger to SHIELD. I sent Stark after him, but I haven't heard a word from him and his communications are down, so I fear the worst for him. Clint has probably killed him, so he will have no problem with killing anyone else I send out. But you will present a challenge. You can fight him, despite his long-distance upper hand. I'm not letting you bring Barton back here alive. I"m giving you the same orders that I gave Stark." Natasha barely catches his next words as the heavy door begins to swing shut. "Dead or not at all."

And then Natasha is on her feet, exhaling sharply and heading for the garage, letting Fury's last words echo in her head, reverberating with each step. She backs out far quicker than she knows she should, but she can't be there anymore, she can't be in the same building as those planning the death of her friend, of _their_ friend, and pretend it's all okay. She doesn't know why she drives to Stark's tower. If what Fury said is true, Stark might be dead, and at the very least, he is certainly not at his tower. But her instinct tells her to go there, so she does.

* * *

"I don't understand what this means," Steve says yet again as Bruce frantically goes through the SHIELD website, trying to make sense of the reappearance of information. "I don't understand the point of clearing it out only to return it. That has to take effort right? Who would do that?"

"I honestly don't know, Steve. It must make sense to whoever is doing it, because it sure as hell makes no sense to me," Bruce sighs.

"Could it have been a mistake?"

"It might have been. But considering the amount of effort it must have taken to break this far in, and considering how high our level of clearance in the SHIELD database already is compared to what theirs must have been, I can't imagine this being a mistake. Maybe the system had a glitch, but then someone would have known. This was no accident."

Steve's forehead wrinkles in consternation and he goes back to his laptop to scroll aimlessly through the database. "This wouldn't have happened if SHIELD used paper documents instead of this internet. You can't catch an internet thief, can you? They're invisible, they could be anywhere in the world. An actual thief stealing actual paperwork is catchable. Right now, this thing doesn't seem _real_. I mean, I know what happened is very real, but it doesn't seem like it because it's just-what-digital?"

"I know what you mean. It doesn't feel like anything important happened," Bruce agrees. He's aimlessly moving his hands across the screens of Tony's computer, but he doesn't seem to acknowledge anything he sees.

"This is real," a voice from the elevator says. "What happened is very real."

Bruce takes his time turning around to see who the newest surprise visitor to Stark's tower is, so used to Tony's so-called security breaches at this point that it barely mattered. Natasha stood in front of them, arms crossed, face tense, her casual jeans and black shirt ill-suited to her murderous mood.

"Hi, Nat. What's wrong?" Bruce says calmly.

Natasha stalks past Bruce and sits across from Steve, crossing her arms and glaring at the fireplace. She isn't shaking anymore, she calmed herself as she drove over, but her eyes still spark with anger. And behind all the anger, Bruce can see the fear in her eyes.

And Bruce knows exactly what's wrong.

"Thor's back," Natasha announces unceremoniously, eyes still fixed blankly on the unlit fireplace.

"He is? That's great! How did he get back? What happened?" Steve's voice is too loud, too cheerful for the situation that he's not yet been made aware of.

"Director Fury has sent him to kill Clint." Natasha's voice is flat, unemotional, resigned. "Kill Clint, and bring Loki back to take to Asgard again."

Steve is on his feet, furious, eyes narrowed, looking completely betrayed. "Clint's one of us! Thor can't-Thor wouldn't kill him would he?" He looks at Natasha, hoping that she'll shake her head and let him keep his trust in SHIELD.

"He seemed pretty sold on killing him when I left. It won't take him long. At least it'll be a quick death."

"One of our own will be dead by tonight? That's unacceptable," Steve says sharply. "We're not going sit by and let that happen."

"Well, what the hell do you suggest we do? We can't stop Thor. We cant go against SHIELD," Natasha argues. She came here with exactly this reaction in mind but now she realizes that if they go against SHIELD, they will all end up targets.

"I'm suggesting that the three of us can _definitely_ protect Clint from Thor. And if nothing else, we have to at least try."

Bruce, who has been watching silently as Natasha and Steve argued, speaks up. "But we don't even know where they are."

Steve looks at Natasha hopefully and she shrugs. "The tracking device in the car he stole was dismantled. We have no idea where he is right now."

"Then there's nothing we can do right now. Give it time," Bruce says.

"Time? There is no time for Agent Barton."

And all three of them know what Steve says is true.

* * *

I'm sure Loki meant to make Stark seem dead so that I would leave the subject alone and accept my fate as a dead man, but I didn't believe him. Why would I? He'd suggested a few less desirable research alternatives, but I refused to go anywhere public and I refused to let him take over the mind of yet another SHIELD employee. Somehow it seemed okay to take over Stark's mind, but no one else's.

_Because Stark would do the same to you,_ Loki suggests. _And you're right. He's not dead._

"He's not," I repeat.

_He was unconscious. He might still be unconscious. And I can' t navigate his mind while he's unconscious. I'm not sure I could even control him while he's awake._

I don't know if he's telling the truth or if he's lying because he doesn't want to help me, but either way, I refuse to just sit by and let SHIELD catch me again while I have nothing to serve as leverage. I still have a chance to figure out what the hell has been going on, and I'm not going to waste it. If I manage to find out what happened, I could work it to my advantage. Trade my knowledge for my freedom.

"We're not done trying," I say and Loki heaves a self-pitying sigh.

* * *

Nick Fury's weeks have been getting consistently worse since the Avengers Initiative had managed to work itself-with a lot of prodding on his part he would admit-into existence in the tumultuous, egotistic mess of people that it was. They were 99% of what his problems stemmed from, but right now, the 1% left over was a bit of a nightmare all by itself.

SHIELD's databases being hacked was the single most startling and not-okay thing that Fury had ever experienced. Headquarters had remained a flustered mess since the early hours of the day, with the hacking, the escape, and then the disappearance of all of the database's information. When the information reappeared, seemingly unharmed, intact and untampered with, SHIELD's computer security teams were completely baffled. A dozen briefs explaining exactly why they were baffled were turned into Fury, but he hasn't read them.

He's been too busy sending Norse gods to kill one of his best agents, knowing that this action will result in his other best agent resenting him, Thor and SHIELD, and possibly even quitting the team.

It was a risk he knows he had to take, but Fury would give anything to never have to make a decision like that again. He knew when he reached the position that he holds that he would have to make these decisions, but it doesn't make it easy, it doesn't make him feel powerful to order the death of a man he knows.

"Director Fury," the intercom says tinnily.

"Yes?"

"I'm going to put something on the monitors. You need to see this."

Fury waits in silence as the screens come to life. The news comes on, an over-makeuped newscaster and the bright white words of 'Breaking News"'highlighted against a red background.

"We've just gotten word from anonymous source that the government branch known as SHIELD, the branch that brought the so called 'Avengers' into existence has been hacked and all of the information was copied and temporarily erased," the newscaster says eagerly.

"Oh no..." Fury says quietly.

"We were sent footage from inside SHIELD's headquarters, footage that was taken by security cameras while the systems were hacked."

"Can they do that? That's not legal. They can't do that," Fury snapped under his breath frantically.

Fury doesn't need to see the footage to know what everyone in the United States is seeing. He switches to another channel.

"My question is, what kind of safety can these people offer if they can't even secure their own information? Who knows what they have-or had I suppose. And who knows who hacked them? I say it gets investigated," one man says loudly.

"Investigated?" an indignant woman says, louder than the man to drown him out. "I say they shut the whole program down!"

Fury shuts the screen down as Agent Hill comes up behind him. "Sir? What are we going to do?"

"This is a nightmare. It's only going to careen wildly out of control from here."

"Sir, if word gets out that Loki has escaped-" Hill doesn't look like she even intended to finish her sentence as Fury cuts her off.

"I know, Agent Hill. That's why I sent Thor out to get him."

"And Agent Barton?"

Fury shakes his head.

"Right."

Agent Hill turns and walks away, leaving Fury to think over what has become of and what he has done to his short-lived group of freedom-protecting heroes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Hello! Yet another chapter. :) Hope you enjoy!**

**Chapter Seven-Assemble**

Tony Stark opens his eyes to a blinding noon sun and the sounds of screeching crickets. He is used to waking up to car horns or Jarvis, but the crickets are a startling change. The armor prevents him from sitting up as fast as he'd like, but once he is propped up on his arms, he sees how unfamiliar the landscape is. Walking towards the only thing that potentially sounds like a road leads him to nothing more than a stream.

"Jarvis. Where the hell am I? What happened?" Tony says, starting to get worried. After Barton's recent mental issues, he knows that having no recollection of a part of the time spent in his suit is very bad.

"You are in Massachusetts, sir. 12 miles from the closest town."

Tony quickly tries to remember the last place he saw before his mental blackout. "What happened to me?"

"I don't know, sir. You stopped responding 5 hours ago. This is the first I have heard from you since then."

"I fell out of the sky. It's like the suit just shut down. And my mind. My mind-I think Loki had something to do with it. He must be near here. I'm going to try to find them."

"Yes, sir."

"Oh. Is Dr. Banner there?"

"Yes, sir."

"I want him here. He can handle Loki better than anyone else," Tony says as he leaves the itchy field that he woke up in behind in favor of the sky.

Jarvis pauses slightly before responding as he so often does, "Yes, sir."

Tony pretends not to notice Jarvis's hesitation, but he can't help but wonder what exactly caused the pause. He figured he would find out soon enough.

* * *

"Dr. Banner, Mr. Stark has requested that you meet him at this location," Jarvis says, interrupting Steve and Natasha's frantic conversation that Bruce has been watching quietly. He turns to look at the screen that shows the map Jarvis has put up.

"Why, what happened?" Bruce says.

"He hinted that it might have something to do with Loki and Agent Barton."

The last words caught Natasha's attention. "What about Clint? Where is he?"

Bruce pointed at the map. "I think that's where Tony is currently, but I guess he's still going after them."

"Mr. Stark said that he thinks Loki took control of his mind for a brief period of time, and he is certain that Loki is close by."

"And if Loki's there, so is Clint," Natasha says. "Come on we're going."

"But-"

"No. _Now_."

"We don't have time to wait, Bruce," Steve says quickly.

Bruce doesn't argue when Natasha wants to drive, but he starts to regret that as she skids hazardously out of the underground garage, narrowly avoiding Tony's newest expensive sports car that he never intends to drive. Jarvis has put the information into the GPS, so she follows it out of the city and north.

"Just to be clear, we're going to _help_ Clint, no matter what Tony wants to do," Natasha says sharply, her tone matching her driving.

"Of course. We're not going to _kill_ him. We're going to help him," Steve says, as loyal and upstanding as ever.

Natasha throws an accusing look at Bruce in the rearview mirror. "Bruce?"

"I really don't think Tony was planning on killing Clint. I don't think he ever was," Bruce says amiably, but he sees how annoyed she is with his answer. "But yeah, of course I'm not going to kill him."

Natasha's eyes are back on the road, to Bruce's relief. Her driving stays terrifying and Bruce's hands don't release their grip on the door handle, but at least she can see where they're going.

"I'm starting to wish I had driven, Miss Romanoff," Steve announces, looking more than a little carsick.

"Oh come on, you've seen worse and you know it."

* * *

Clint has been pacing anxiously, hands clenching around his bow, eyes surveying the sky anxiously, for the last twenty minutes. "I can't believe I let this happen," he hisses below his breath.

_I can._ I know that my voice is taunting and unkind in his mind, but what I'm telling him is true.

He turns to me and glares. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

_You know what I mean. Your business is killing but sometimes you forget that. Sometimes you take pity on your prey. You took pity on your Black Widow, you took pity on me. You might not realize this, but you did. Even after all I did to you, mind control, forcing you to kill your own men and look at you. You're still here. You freed me from my Asgardian prison, you broke me out of SHIELD's prison. And why? I've caused your people nothing but pain._

Clint has no response. He sits down and looks out across the stream. "Maybe you're right."

_I know I am._

Clint's not amused, if his sharp glare and finger twitching on his bow is any indication. "Maybe I took pity on you for being terrified. Maybe I saw Natasha's childish fear in your eyes when you came through Selvig's portal with your mouth sewn shut."

He'd learned to throw an unkind word right back in our time together. And at his words, the stitches that tore raggedly through my skin stung more than they had since he had first tried to cut the stitches and failed. _But when Natasha needed rescuing, you didn't forsake your own people to help her. And look at what you've done in the last few hours. Look at the damage that you keep causing._

"We've had this discussion. It's not about you right now. It's about figuring out what the hell happened to SHIELD. That database has never been hacked in the history of SHIELD. It _shouldn't_ get hacked. I need to know how, and I need to know why," Clint snaps. "Try Stark again. See if he's still unconscious."

I'm still convinced that no matter how limitless Stark's powers of knowledge are in this realm, it's not worth the dirt that I sit on if I can't control him. And his twisting, ever-changing, completely senseless and random mind will be impossible to control. I close my eyes, deciding that arguing will be useless, and search for Stark. It's not hard, but this time, instead of taking over his mind, I'll lurk, watching, to try not to disturb him, considering how it worked out last time.

And he is flying again, but this time he'll stay in the air and unaffected. I don't bother to try to understand his mind, I don't have time. As soon as I start to see through his eyes, he begins to drop out of the sky, closer to the ground, where I see a lazy, trickling stream and a road like the one that we drove on.

He's here, I realize, and I flee his mind. When my eyes open again, I see the sky that I'm more used to, and Clint moving towards me. I spring to my feet.

"Well?"

_He's here._

"What does that mean?"

_He's close by and he's going to find us._ I start for the car, hoping he'll just follow and we can put some space between the Iron Man and ourselves.

"Hold it," a hollow metallic voice says calmly. The mask pulls away to reveal Tony Stark's smirking face standing between the car and myself. "We have some things to talk about. You can't leave yet. Besides. The party's just getting started. Your favorite green friend is about to show up."

I snarl at him behind the loosening stitches.

"Whoa. What happened to your face? Did Barton do that? Because I heard a rumor that he wanted to put your eye out, but that's a little extreme. You're into weird things, Barton. We should probably talk about that," Stark announces casually like the atmosphere is friendly instead of that of a standoff.

"Thor did that to him. In Asgard," Clint says, stepping towards us. "What are you here to do? To kill me?"

"Well. Technically, that's the plan. Those are Fury's orders. But from what I know about the team, that's not the sort of decision that would be supported by anyone but Fury. And I've just gotten used to working in a team, so I don't want to get kicked out just yet. Besides, I was thinking of using Loki's magical mind powers to figure out this SHIELD disaster."

I roll my eyes. Of course he was thinking that.

"That's what I've been trying to do. That's actually why-" Clint stops because he doesn't want Stark holding him accountable for his crash-landing.

"Why Loki invaded my mind and made me fall out of the sky? I assumed. I won't hold grudges for now. But you're paying the damage. Since Loki probably doesn't have insurance. Do you? No. Didn't think so." Stark goes towards Clint. "So did you find anything?"

"No. You fell out of the sky."

"Right. Well. We'll just wait until Bruce shows up, then we can go back to my tower and figure it out," Tony says easily. "Got any food?"

Clint turns the glare that spends most of the time aimed at me on Stark. "No. I didn't plan a picnic when I escaped SHIELD's holding cells."

"That's disappointing. Oh! I just remembered. I have a phone call to make."

* * *

"Natasha, your driving is terrifying. I think I'm going to drive us home, okay?" Bruce announces.

"But look how far we've made it in so little time! What's that noise?" Natasha startles at the crashing sound of hard rock coming from the dashboard.

"Oh that's Tony. Let me talk to him," Bruce says quickly.

Natasha presses the button to answer it and nods at him.

"Bruce! You almost here, buddy?" Tony's voice comes through the speakers.

"Uh, yeah. On my way now. Are you gonna send your location so I can find you, or do I have to guess?"

"You will _never_ guess who I'm standing with."

"Um... Clint and Loki?" Bruce asks.

"Right! How convenient. They were-"

"Tony! Where the hell are you?" Natasha yells.

"Whoa! What was that?" Tony exclaims in surprise.

"Tony, it's Natasha. I'm going to need your coordinates now," Natasha forces out between gritted teeth.

"Tasha? Tony, why is Natasha coming?" Clint's voice comes through now.

"God, you try to have one private conversation and the assassins interrupt," Tony snarks. "Honestly. Don't tell me, Steve is there too?"

"Hi, Tony!"

"Coordinates. Now, Tony."

Their destination is highlighted for them on the GPS and Natasha sighs in relief. "All right. We'll be there shortly." And without further ado, Natasha hangs up on Tony and slams on the accelerator.

When Natasha, Steve and Bruce step out of the car, they are met with Tony, Clint and Loki frozen in the same slightly-to-extremely wary positions that they had been in since Bruce arrived. Natasha pulls her gun out and Clint steps back quickly. Steve quickly ends up in the middle of the situation, ready to act as the mediator, and Bruce hangs back, watching as always.

"You okay there, Tony?" Bruce asks.

"I'll live. Took a bit of a fall, but I think I'm fine."

"Natasha, what are you doing?" Clint says, remembering the last time she had a gun and they weren't on the same side. He watches her point it towards Loki.

"We're not supposed to kill Loki, Natasha," Bruce says mildly.

"What are we going to do, bring him back with us?" Natasha snaps. "No. It ends here."

"We have orders to not kill him, Natasha! You can't do this," Steve intervenes.

"We also have orders to kill Clint, and I don't see anyone carrying those out, so clearly we're all okay with rule breaking," Natasha's voice rises.

Clint steps towards her, hands raised in peace. "Don't do this. We still might need him alive. He can help us with this SHIELD break in. Tony and I want to keep him alive. He can be useful with his mind reading. It's destructive, but it doesn't have to be."

Natasha looks at Steve, Tony and Bruce. "Do we need him alive?" she asks, seeking affirmation, gun still trained square between Loki's eyes.

"They're right. He might be helpful," Bruce offers.

Natasha throws a distrustful glance back at Loki.

"If if makes you feels any better, we'll let you point your gun at him the whole time," Tony suggests.

After Natasha has agreed to the arrangement, Steve waves them all towards the cars. "We're going to have to split up, but one will follow the other back to Stark Tower and then we can get started," Steve says confidently.

Then the sky in thunderously dark and lightening flashes, and they all realize that they're not going anywhere. Not yet.


	8. Chapter 8

**Oh gosh. I feel really bad about how infrequent my updates are. I still love you all! I'm just hitting a lot of writer's block lately.**

**I'm kind of excited that all of the Avengers are finally in this story, even though it's definitely not the direction I initially planned on taking. Apparently, this story has a life of its own! I tried not to over do the Thor/thunder thing, but I already know that I haven't succeeded. Whoops. Long author's note is long. Sorryyy.**

**On with the story! (Insert standard disclaimer here.) Review! It makes me write faster!**

**Chapter Eight-Complications**

When the wind died down, the trees stopped shaking their leaves like a terrified child would shake in their shoes, and the dust finally settled in response to Thor's thunderous arrival, Tony Stark felt himself wanting to laugh at the entire situation. He didn't, for his own good really, considering the murderous intensity glinting in Natasha's eyes. She probably wouldn't appreciate him making a joke of the situation. None of the others would appreciate it, judging by their tense stances. Steve had made his way between Clint and Loki and where Thor now stood, shield raised pointedly as a reminder that not even Mjolnir could force him out of the way. Thor's beloved hammer was clenched in his fists, raised in the air and ready to strike, but he hasn't moved since he touched down.

Bruce lurks behind Tony, staying away, avoiding the confrontation but there enough to be a threat to Thor. Clint had his bow out and pointed at Thor, matching Natasha's stance of protectiveness, protecting Loki like she wanted to protect him. And looking at it all, Tony realized how Thor must have felt, more than just an outsider, but forcefully ostracized in the same way that they had treated Loki when the fight was finally over in New York. Thor scanned his eyes across them, settled on Loki with his still bloody, jagged, tearing mouth and his Avenger bodyguards.

"I am not here to hurt you, Loki. I am only here to take you back to where you belong," Thor said, voice booming and breaking the rigid silence. "Come with me now and you will not be hurt."

Loki shoots him a dark look, a combination of resentful and furious. Tony looks between Loki's stony expression and Thor's, rapidly becoming more depressed as the silence stretched between them. When Thor shakes his head in response to an unspoken question, Loki steps forward, closer to Clint, and narrows his eyes.

"Brother I am sorry. This is not what should have happened, this is not how we were raised. But you were not forced into this. You let this happen, you made this happen, and you must be punished. Director Fury gave the order, I have no choice," Thor said unhappily.

"What are they talking about?" Bruce's voice is low to not interrupt the half-silent conversation between the gods.

Natasha shakes her head. "I don't know. But I don't like it. What moron thought it was a good idea to sew Loki's mouth shut? Now his only way of communicating is through another's mind so we don't know what he's saying." Natasha hasn't taken her eyes off Thor and Loki's exchange, hoping for some kind of sign as to what they were saying.

"They're talking about the fact that Nick Fury has given Thor the order to kill me," Clint says emotionlessly.

Bruce, Steve and Tony turn towards Clint in surprise. Even Natasha breaks her furious gaze directed at Loki to look at him, her fingertips dancing on the gun that rests on her thigh like her weapon stands a chance against Thor.

"But I got that order," Tony says. "And I didn't kill you. Not for one second did anyone think that I actually would kill you."

Loki looks at Tony, his expression unreadable. Though Tony can't know for sure what Loki is thinking, he feels a cold despair, forcing him to dismiss his previous statement. Loki knows Thor better than anyone else there. He knows exactly what Thor would be willing to do to preserve the peace or whatever misguided lie Nick Fury told him to convince him to kill an ally.

"But you're different, Tony. You already don't listen to any of Director Fury's orders." Clint's voice is resigned. "Thor has to kill me. Thor is going to kill me."

* * *

"A few indignant news channels and reporters doesn't mean the imminent demise of SHIELD." Agent Calwell, Assisting Director of Communications and Liaising knew what he was saying was a lie. He didn't seem to know Fury well enough to know that what he said wouldn't make him feel better. In fact, it would only serve to make him even angrier.

"It's not 'a few' channels. It's everywhere. It's on Comedy Central and Turner Classic Movies for God's sake. The chances of us not getting shut down at this point are slim to none," Fury said quietly. The scary kind of quiet, the kind that made Agent Calwell wonder exactly when Fury would snap.

"Should I-should I try to contact Agent Romanoff and have her bring Banner, Stark, Thor and Rogers back to base? Should their mission be called off?"

"Absolutely not. They're going to finish what they started. I'm going to accomplish one last thing before this all goes to hell in a hand basket."

"Yes, sir," Calwell says, before turning and exiting the room.

"Oh, I think it's already gone to hell in a hand basket, Director Fury. I think it went to hell when you put that team together," a voice with a crisp, unkind English accent said from the doorway.

Fury turned to face the speaker, already fully aware of who it was. "This is unexpected, Andrews."

"No, it's not, Fury," she said sharply. "You've been expecting this since the invasion. Since you disobeyed our orders and let your ragtag band of misfits almost destroy the entire planet."

"But they didn't. They saved us and the island of Manhattan is still inhabitable."

"Heavily damaged, with repairs and reconstruction underway for the next seven years," Andrews said.

"It's better than it being completely destroyed. And I think everyone there would appreciate that. No amount of repairs and expense is worse than immediate destruction." Fury sat down, motioning for Andrews to do the same. "Why are you here?"

"The Council has decided that in light of the recent hacking scandal, we are going to temporarily relieve you of duty, Director Fury. We are going to step in and fix this problem, starting with the problem's origins."

"Origins?"

"The Avengers, Fury. This wouldn't have happened without them." Andrews slides a folder across the glass table and stands up. "You are relieved of duty until further notice, Nick Fury."

Fury blinks in surprise, not even sure if the Council has the power to do what they are doing. He makes no move to take the folder, which he knows incloses his termination papers, makes no move to stand and leave the room.

"I would suggest that you disappear, Fury. No one is very happy with you. You've made a lot of enemies recently."

The door slams shut and the room goes dark, and Fury still hasn't moved, his mind working quickly, going through the conversation, trying to make sense of it all. He slams his hand down on the intercom.

"Agent Hill. I need you to come up to the debriefing room on Level Seven."

* * *

Lightening flashes in the sky as Thor spins his hammer threateningly. Natasha has her guns trained on Thor, Tony's mask has slammed down over his face, Bruce twitches menacingly in the back, and even Steve has his gun out threateningly.

"You're not going to kill Clint, Thor," Natasha says, warning in her voice. "There's no reason to do this."

"Listen, Thor. We get why you think you need to do this, but you don't need to. Leave it alone, let it go. We'll let you come with us, let you keep an eye on Loki. But you can't kill Clint." Steve is trying to calm the situation down, but they all know how it's going to end.

"And, Thor. You can't fight us and expect to win. It doesn't work like that," Bruce said. Thor looks at him, assesses him carefully, remembering the last time the two fought.

"I will take my chances if I think that it will stop Loki's schemes," Thor said. And his hammer crashes down on Captain America's shield once more, thunder booming as the sky went dark.

**P.S: I didn't know (and the internet didn't seem to know) if any of the members of the Council had names in the movie. So I gave them names that I made up. If anyone knows whether the characters have actual names or not, they should tell me and I shall attempt to fix it.**


	9. Chapter 9

**hello again! Don't get used to the frequent updates :p. This chapter is about half the size of the others, but I did that for a reason. Hope you enjoy! **

**(Don't own Avengers)**

**Chapter Nine-Liar Liar**

Thor had never thought of himself as a bad brother. Until Loki had changed, though he was already different from any other Asgardian, Thor hadn't put much thought into it at all. He hadn't needed to. They were just brothers that fought and laughed like any brothers should. And sometimes Thor was too prideful, too warmongering, too eager for battle. And sometimes Loki lied too much, played a trick that really wasn't meant in jest at all, worked up something awful and haunting to say to strike Thor to the very core. But then they would forgive the other's stupidity and move on.

Loki changed so much, from the moment that their father announced that Thor would be crowned king, to now, where he stood before him, challenging him, the most unbrotherly unkindness in his pale eyes. He had put so much distance between himself and Thor, all their years as brothers, friends, meaning nothing to him. Times of friendship had been replaced with shadows of resentment, oneupmanship and lying. They were both in the wrong, and Thor now recognized it, even if Loki didn't yet. Thor knows now that how he treated Loki, _disrespected, shunned, hurt_, caused him to react in the only way he knew how. Retaliation, lies, backstabbing and trickery. In a way he'd been held back from the true extent of his power by the army of Chitauri, something that maybe SHIELD and the other Avengers wouldn't understand, but Thor did. Loki worked best alone, Thor realized that he had forced that upon him.

Thor knew the moment that Odin forced him to sew Loki's lips shut, to stop the lying and the destruction, that their relationship was completely destroyed. Thor saw everything in Loki's eyes as he did as his father had ordered, resentment, fear, anger. Any hope for reason was extinguished, but at least they would have him under control.

And if Loki was beyond reason when he led the Chitauri to Earth, Thor feared what he would be willing to do this time. Without the magic of the Tesseract, he had no way to discern between those that Loki could have possessed and those that weren't. When he quickly scanned over his fellow Avengers' eyes as they stood between him and his brother, an act that made no sense to Thor, he saw none of the crystal blue that they had seen in Hawkeye. But the fact that they were _defending_ the very person that had led such a destructive attack on their realm was too reminiscent of Loki's magic. He had tricked them into joining him, and there was no telling what he would force them to do if Thor didn't at least _try_ to stop them. Loki's madness, schemes, trickery, were all in part Thor's fault. His guilt and responsibility drove him more than Nick Fury's orders ever could.

Just like their first fight, Mjolnir crashing down on Captain America's shield nearly leveled the surrounding area. And just like their first fight, Thor equaled Iron Man and the Captain in strength. Iron Man's fists and blasts of generated power combined with Black Widow's fierce, quick, brutal attack, which reminded Thor so much of Sif back in Asgard, wore him out, but he wasn't nearly ready to end the fight by surrendering.

Just when he resolved himself to win this fight, he felt his mind going black, the sounds of battle quickly muffled, drowned out by silence and false serenity. Mjolnir crashed to the dirt heavily, and Thor was frozen, eyes closed as he followed the path of his weapon. He made no move to stop the fall, he couldn't stop himself, and as he lay in the ground, his eyes met those pale eyes of his lying brother.

_I know this will hurt you to hear, Thor. That's why I'm going to say it._ His garish mouth is twisted into a lopsided smirk. _I didn't have to force them to fight for me. The only one that forced them to fight for me was you._

And Thor's not sure if his brother is lying to him anymore.


	10. Chapter 10

**Hello, darlings! I'm sorry I'm a terrible updater. I've been distracted by Batman and my birthday and all kinds of fun stuff! So. Yeah. Sorry... As I was writing this, I realized that everything that has happened so far has happened over the course of one day and I was like 'dang. they must all be tired.' Hence the chapter title I suppose. As always, I hope you enjoy! Read and review!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Avengers or any of these characters. All of this belongs to Marvel.**

**Chapter 10-A Hell of a Day**

"Fury is out."

Andrews' voice is sharp, rang across the camera to the rest of the Council in their respective countries, where they sit in their dark, silent rooms and share secrets. She knows, they all know, that what she said was just a statement of the obvious. She wouldn't be standing where Fury normally stood in the SHIELD headquarters if Fury was still in charge. They all know she said it to reaffirm her position over them, she was the one that planned it all and she was the one that would now have more power than the rest of them. And maybe they didn't like it, but her one person power trip is better than Fury's team of six super persons power trip.

"Now what, Andrews? We liked your plan, but now that you've gotten what you wanted, at our expense no less, you have to cooperate with us," Zharkov snaps, uninterested in her preening. "There are things that you must do with SHIELD."

"I know, Zharkov. I know what I have to do."

* * *

Thor is on his knees, eyes glazed over, Mjolnir laying heavily in the dirt. Clint watches Loki as the others watch Thor, watches as he steps forward and narrows his eyes at his brother. Thor shakes, clearly suffering, but his fellow Avengers make no move. They don't know what to do, have no idea which side they're on anymore. Natasha turns to Clint, her eyes telling him that she needs reassurance that she's doing the right thing, but Clint knows that he isn't really the right person to judge this anymore. Clint looks at Tony, who nods and steps forward. Tony's quicker at things like this, speaking, making bad situations sound a little bit better. Maybe he can justify their actions to Thor.

"Thor," Tony says calmly as the god's eyes snap towards him, the glaze clouding his blue eyes dissipating. "We're not suddenly the bad guys, okay? We're still on your side, in a way. We want to be on your side, and we want you to be with us. But right now, we need Clint alive and Loki on this planet, so we can't let you do what you were sent here to do. We don't want to fight you over this, but we will if we have to."

"And we're not just doing this because Loki is forcing us to," Clint adds carefully, feeling the need to second what Loki had already told Thor.

Thor doesn't even need to speak for all of them to know what he's thinking. His face plainly shows his distrust for the archer, shows that those words coming from Clint offer no reassurance.

"It's true, Thor. It's not just Clint saying this." Natasha moves forward protectively, dangerously, putting herself between Thor and Clint. "There's something going on here, something that we don't understand, and we all need to be on the same side to figure it out."

"And having Loki with us would be helpful," Bruce adds. "You can take him back to your prison once this is over, but until then, we need you to work with us."

"Although, to be honest, I think I'd rather have him in one of our prisons, considering how quickly he escaped yours," Tony says without any accusation in his voice.

"That wouldn't have happened if-" Thor starts to say.

"Yes, we know. It's all Clint's fault. But, considering the situation, it's really not that bad that he's here is it?" Now there is warning in Tony's voice.

Thor looks at all of them, seeing the determination in their faces, knowing that they will fight him if they have to, knowing that he will not win if it comes to that.

"What is it that you need him for?"

Tony smirks at him. "Something that you're not going to understand."

* * *

"Agent Hill? What've you got for me?" Fury says, tapping his fingers impatiently on the glass table. "I haven't got all day, you know."

"You haven't even got right now, apparently. Neither have I," Hill's voice came through the intercom somewhat frantically.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

There is silence on her end for a moment, then the sound of a card being swiped carefully. "It's saying that I'm not authorized clearance for this. What? I'm always authorized clearance for this. This whole thing was my idea, for the love of god!"

"Agent Hill, calm down. Go back to whatever it was you were doing before, and let me see if I can somehow fix this," Fury says calmly.

"This _is_ what I was doing before! Running the trackers, making sure all the agents in the field were alive. They can't just _shut me down_. This _my_ operation. This is mine." Fury can practically see her at the other end of the line, shaking and pushing her hands against her head in annoyance.

"But we _can_ just shut you down, Agent Hill." This voice is British and belongs to a woman that is wildly out of place in the agency that she now runs.

"And who are you?"

"Andrews," Fury mutters too quietly for the intercom to pick up.

"I'm Director Andrews, Agent Hill. I'm taking Fury's place, and because of that, I do in fact have every right to take control of your operation and do with it as I please."

"And what exactly do you want with my operation?"

"I need it to track down a few agents," Andrews says casually.

"That's not what this operation was designed for, and you know it. In fact, I'm pretty sure you're one of the people that opposed it for that very reason. It's not to be used to _hunt people down._ It's there to keep our agents safe. Like being out in the field with them and knowing just what they need from thousands of miles away."

"It's a very nice sales pitch, Agent Hill. And I'm sure you might have even talked yourself into believing it was true. But I know what it's really used for, and I'm not afraid of what it can do. I'm not afraid of the moral ramifications of hunting people down for the right reasons."

"Who are you hunting down?" Hill's voice is calm and reserved, her front that she put up when faced with something that she disagreed with.

"I think you know," Andrews says patronizingly. Fury can almost picture her patting Hill on the head as steam came from his agent's ears.

"This is wrong. Hunting down people like this? You can't do this!"

"These aren't 'people,' Agent Hill. They're different. They hardly count."

The door slams and the intercom crackles off, and Fury is left in silence in the empty conference room, left to contemplate what had just happened.

He hadn't thought it would come to this. He's been assuming up until this moment that Andrews would dismantle the Avengers and send them to the far corners of the earth. But now he's not so sure. Using Hill's GPS tracking chips, created by Hill out of genuine concern for field agents' safety, to hunt down his Avengers could only end badly. Probably for Steve, Natasha, Tony, Bruce, Clint and now Thor, but even they had the chance to fight back against whatever special ops team Andrews was sending in, they would end up painted in the bad light.

Somehow, Fury was going to have to get in contact with his agents before anything could happen.

* * *

If Agent Hill had been able to operate her tracking system, she would have seen the Avengers, more specifically Clint Barton, heading back to Stark Tower by way of obscure backroads, and then occasionally routes that weren't even roads.

"You know, this is terrible for my poor car," Tony complains as his overpriced, underused car bounces gracelessly over the ground of the off-track route that Natasha is leading them on.

"Staying off main roads is probably the best thing we could be doing though. We need to avoid attention," Steve says from where he sits in the back seat.

"Yes, well. This is ridiculous. I don't think she even knows what she's doing up there. I bet we're lost and she's just bluffing."

Natasha actually seemed to know exactly what they were doing, Tony realized, as they pulled out onto a main road, and then highway, just a few miles before reaching the bridge they needed to get to Stark Tower.

"See?" Bruce says. "She knew what she was doing. She's a super spy, after all."

They park under the tower, and Natasha seems to be out of the car as soon as it comes to a complete stop, followed by Clint. "What's the plan?" Natasha asks, her voice echoing off the concrete.

"We get him upstairs," Tony says, jerking his head towards Loki, who has just been pulled from the SHIELD car by Thor. "And I get back to my computers and we try to figure this out. And then we'll have to come up with a way to make this whole situation look better than it does, but I'm sure Pepper can handle that."

They crowd into the elevator, Thor eyeing the doors distrustfully, and go up past all those seemingly unused floors to the very top of the building. Once they get to their destination, they spread out, Tony, Bruce and Natasha going to the computers and beginning to type rapidly. Clint circles the room carefully before sitting down next to Steve across from Thor and Loki.

"I'm feeling incredibly useless right now," Steve comments.

"So am I, but I have this feeling we'll be coming in handy soon. Surely our presence here can't go unnoticed. Some of us aren't exactly supposed to be here. For the love of god, I'm not even supposed to be alive," Clint says.

"I am sorry about that," Thor says remorsefully.

"I've dealt with worse. It comes with the job." Clint glances at Natasha and she smiles briefly before going back to her work.

"So you think SHIELD will be coming here at any moment?" Steve asks.

"I wouldn't put it past them," Clint says as he gets up and paces the room. Steve watches him for a minute before getting up and following him.

"I would do anything for some time to sleep," Clint comments. "It's been a hell of a day so far and it's not even dark out yet."

Then Steve gets too close to Clint, examining the back of his neck suspiciously. Clint turns and looks at him. "Whoa, Steve. Whatcha doing there?"

"What's in the back of your neck?" Steve asks randomly.

"Um. My spine? Why?"

"What's that?" Steve asks, pointing at a little cut that was almost impossible to see. Clint reaches back to feel it, to feel the bump roughly the size of a crumb protruding from under his skin.

"What the hell is this, Natasha?" Clint says, voice beginning to raise in panic. "This wasn't there, what is this?"

Natasha is behind him now, feeling the bump. "It feels like... Stark? What is this?"

Tony has pulled up Clint's SHIELD files and was scrolling through them quickly. "It's a tracking device."

Clint looks at Tony in horror. "A tracking device?"

"I guess you were right. SHIELD's going to be here very soon to finish what they started."


	11. Chapter 11

**Ahh... hi. Sorry, I'm awful at updating, I know. I'll update quicker now, I think I'm done having writer's block for now. Anyway. Enjoy! And remember to review, so that I remember to update!**

**Guess whaaat? I still don't own Avengers! Shocking, I know!**

**Chapter Eleven-Take One For the Team**

"You were right. SHIELD's going to be here very soon to finish what they started." And for all his skill at hiding how he truly feels, Tony can't keep the alarm out of his voice.

For a long moment, the room is silent and it feels as though they are all holding their breath, and one by one, they turn to stare at Clint.

"No."

Clint turns and faces them with his hand on the chip in his neck. His eyes are leveled and fixed on the elevator door, past the faces ranging in expression from concerned to confused. "They're not going to trace me back here."

"What are you saying? Of course they'll track you here." Bruce's voice is reminiscent of a fed-up teacher speaking to someone that doesn't understand the simplest of problems.

"No, there's no way we're going to be able to trick a SHIELD tracking device, they don't seem to use things that don't work often, and I'm sure something like is impossible to trick," Tony adds.

"I'm not going to _trick _it. I'm leaving. I'm going to get as far away from here as I can before they find me." Clint starts towards the elevator, his hand reaching back to feel his arrows. Natasha, watching unhappily, realizes that he only did that to reassure her, to tell her that he's not going to just turn himself in without a fight. So she nods at him, a jerky motion, so that he knows that she isn't happy about his plan, but she won't stop him. And with Natasha's reluctant approval of the plan, Bruce, Tony, and Thor step back and let him go towards the exit.

"They'll kill you," Steve snaps. "You're not doing this. Absolutely not."

"It's the best we can do right now. We can't lead SHIELD here, and clearly none of the rest of you have tracking devices, right? So I'm the problem. I have to leave." Clint smirked a bit. "Besides. I've taken on aliens, I can handle SHIELD's less competent assassins."

It's not true, of course. It's going to be just him against an onslaught, eventually he'll have to break. And Clint knows it, judging by the way his face is set. Set for defeat, prepared to lose for something bigger. He's not just going to give up, but he doesn't think he's coming back.

Steve looks around the room, looks at the projected computer screens, the bright flashing lights that he doesn't think he'll ever understand, certainly not right now, and picks up his shield. "I'm coming with you."

Tony rolls his eyes and goes back to his computers. "Of course you are."

And so they leave in silence, an unspoken salute from the rest of the team following them down the elevator and out into the garage. Clint feels Loki's eyes on him the whole time, narrowed and watchful, and maybe just a tiny bit uncertain. But he is quiet, and Clint isn't sure whether he should be annoyed or relieved by the peace in his mind.

Clint gets in the driver's seat of the SHIELD car, barely waiting for Steve to get in before peeling out of the garage and into the traffic of New York.

"Where will we go?" Steve asks, hand clinching around the door handle instinctively as the car swerved through traffic with all the finesse that a sedan will allow.

Clint is silent for a moment, mind working quickly, mapping out escape routes and ideal locations for a clean fight, searching for an idea that gives them a chance for success. And then when his mind settles on a plan, he jerks the steering wheel, skidding down a street and slamming on the brakes, completely stopping the mild traffic on the street.

Clint gets out of the car and runs for the filthy stairs of the Subway entrance, barely taking time to slam the door shut. Steve follows and then overtakes Clint, bounding down the stairs, picking up on the plan before Clint has to say anything.

They don't exactly blend as they board the next train, with their weapons and sweaty twitchiness and red, white, and blue shining shield, but when the commuters swarm, they're concealed and become nothing more than two ordinary men.

Except, of course, for the tracking device. Clint couldn't feel it before, but now he can, it stings of sweat and heat and the oncoming swarm of SHIELD agents. His hands unconsciously creeps back towards it, and Steve can see that he's shaking.

"We'll be fine," Steve says quietly, voice barely understandable over the din of commuters.

Clint nods a bit, preoccupied with staring out the window of the train at the lights flashing by in the tunnel. "If you had to, could you pry those doors open?"

Steve follows Clint's gaze to the doors of the train. "Yes." And they're of the same mind again, on the same page, without even saying a word. They both can see that if they need to, they can force their way out of the train, into the tiny space between the concrete wall and the tracks.

The train is slowing down, stopping, and in the midst of the everyday commuters filling the platform, Clint can pick out the SHIELD agents, standing still, eyes scanning the length of the train before settling unnervingly on Clint and Steve.

"Good, because you might have to."


	12. Chapter 12

**Hello lovelies! Chapter twelve for you! I hope you enjoy, and review! **

**Disclaimer: I still don't own the Avengers. Sadly. Dangit marvel. Just share why don't you.**

**Chapter Twelve-Rogue**

It happened in a flash, in the train's brief moments of pause at the platform. The SHIELD agents boarded with the civilians, and Clint and Steve exited away from everyone else. The door proved to be barely any trouble at all for Steve, and Clint laughed in a huff of frantic happiness at how smoothly that had gone as the two of them tried to flatten themselves against the stone-cold, rounded walls of the tunnel.

The train starts moving again, loudly, slowly, and when it's finally gone, the bright lights disappearing into the darkness, Clint hears clapping.

Which is already a bit odd, because Clint isn't used to people applauding his quick thinking, and even more odd, considering that no one is supposed to be paying attention to them.

Clint's eyes snap from the train to scan the platform, which is quickly emptying, the citizens being sort of herded out by nondescript men in plain black suits. _Damn it. _ More SHIELD employees. And then his eyes land on what's directly across from him, black jacket nearly as imposing as Fury's. She's not tall, and she's middle aged and deceptively unthreatening, but Clint knows that she's not to be trifled with. She stops clapping and smirks down at them.

Quite frankly, Clint should have seen that coming. But he's sleep deprived and not used to fighting against SHIELD, so he'll forgive his own mistake. Once he's done escaping from that mistake.

"Agent Barton," she says. She's British, and her accent is clipped and unkind.

Clint doesn't say anything, just tenses and holds his bow up. Steve stands facing forward, ever a soldier, and he is the first to speak.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Nick Fury 2.0," she says, smirking and shifting her weight, reaching into her coat and pulling out a handgun. "New and improved, in case you didn't understand that reference, Captain."

Steve narrowed his eyes a little bit. "Why does SHIELD need a 'new and improved' Nick Fury? He seems to be handling things just fine. Considering the alien invasion that just happened."

"Because he was failing his responsibilities. That alien invasions shouldn't have happened at all, but thanks to the former Director Fury, it did. But all of that is beyond you two, and hardly matters to you anyway, Captain Rogers." She turned to Clint. "It matters to _you _though, Agent Barton. It matters rather a lot, actually."

"What do you mean by that?" His voice is steady, calm, but his bow is still raised threateningly.

"You're a liability, Barton. A remnant of a fiasco of an alien invasion. And worse, you're one of the bad parts of that alien invasion, and the new and improved SHIELD can't have unstable, highly dangerous agent on the loose. If there's one thing Fury and I agree on, it's that you're a danger to all of SHIELD."

"So you're here to kill me."

"Oh, you're a clever one." She clicks her tongue, tilting her head with such thinly veiled contempt that Steve wants to cringe. "Such a loss to the program." And then she cocks the gun. "If we're going for drama here, what with the trains and the bad lighting, I'd like to add; Agent Barton, you are relieved of duty."

Clint doesn't plan on standing by while she kills him. Her gun is deafening, and his ears ring as he watches his arrow bury itself in her leg-he doesn't want to kill her, not before his questions have been answered-but she's already collapsing onto the ground, eyes widened in shock.

Steve lowers his gun and looks at Clint. They don't say anything to each other, but Clint nods in appreciative acknowledgement of Steve's actions, before turning back to look at the SHIELD agents.

The SHIELD agents have already started moving, urgency reflected in each bullet that they fire, ricocheting off the walls and pinging with all the quietness of a hundred window panes shattering at once.

If the SHIELD agents are quick, Steve and Clint are quicker and better trained, instincts honed by aliens and adrenaline. They've maneuvered around the agents, attacking them from both sides. But there's only two of them, and seven of the SHIELD agents, and without much space to work with, it stops looking good for Clint and Steve.

"We're going to have to get out of here _now _or we're not getting out alive at all," Clint says frantically, and Steve knows what he says is true.

"So, do any of you remember that whole 'British invasion' with the Beatles and the weird clothing?"

Predictably, Bruce's bizarre inquiry is met with confused and vaguely annoyed looks.

"Is this relevant?" Natasha snaps, turning back to her screens.

"Yes." And Bruce taps the small, portable computer screen that Tony has convinced him to use. What he has been looking at, examining carefully and methodically for the last half hour appears on Tony and Natasha's screens. It's just, to the un-examining eye, a series of computer code. "Look. Look at where it's from."

"Is that-?" Tony starts to ask, turning to some of the paperwork that Bruce has found, lists of the computers at SHIELD and the software that has been installed in each to keep track of the goings-on of every computer.

"This is the virus that hacked and wiped all of the SHIELD computers," Bruce clarifies.

"And the virus originated _from _a SHIELD computer?" Natasha's used to betrayal, but not from SHIELD, and she's not sure she wants Bruce to answer.

"Now look at the access code."

Natasha leans in the read the screen. "285/Andrews? That's-that's one of the Council members."

"The Council?" Thor asks, silent up until now. "The ones that ordered your city to be destroyed?"

"Yes."

"Well, what are they doing wiping SHIELD history?" Tony asks, scanning through more of the SHIELD database.

Now that there's an actual definite name to put with the problem, Natasha demand for answers sees her figuring it out before anyone, her fingers moving quickly across the screens. "This," she says after a few brief minutes, turning the screen to face Tony and Bruce. It's a private memo for the higher ups of SHIELD, the ones that get the heavily encrypted memos containing the secrets of the universe and the like.

**Fury steps down as SHIELD Director, replaced by K Andrews as of 2:04 PM.**

The rest is written like a press release, a brief statement that glosses over the morning's events, using the hacking of SHIELD's database as justification for Fury's removal from his position. Justifying with the hacking, the alien invasion nightmare, with SHIELD agents going rogue and setting free the very person that led the invasion against earth.

It all seems very valid, and that puts a sick feeling in Natasha's stomach. This organization that she believed in, had come to trust completely, had fallen apart so quickly, and after something that should have only been considered a success no less.

Loki has joined Tony, Bruce and Thor where they stand gathered around Natasha's computer, and he points at something at the end of the memo.

_What does that say?_

Tony looks at what the pale god points at. "Former SHIELD assassin accused of freeing alien terrorist leader Loki confirmed dead."

Natasha's face drains of blood, eyes wide. "No." Her voice is empty, cold, distant, as she turns away from the computer. "That can't be true, it _can't _be."

Bruce looks at Loki. "Is it true? Can you see if he's alive or not?"

Loki has already closed his eyes, suddenly very far away, searching for Clint.

_He's alive._


End file.
